School Clothes

Jumper - Simplicity 5234

Thank you for the compliments on the REC shirt! I appreciate the time you've taken to follow the project. Keep coming back, as there's still pants and a jacket to go before I'm done!

For the rest of this week, I am back to sewing school clothes for my daughter. I have to sew up five more pieces and I'm done. That's three more skirts, one dress and a blouse. At least I think that's it until she needs turtlenecks for this winter and we can't find RTW ones in coordinating colors. I'll worry about that in a few months!

For my tastes, Simplicity 5234 is not the most exciting pattern in the world. It is a good basic pattern, but it does take some imagination and creativity to make it interesting.

To make this jumper more interesting, I cut both the yokes and the pockets on the bias. I then trimmed the pockets and yokes with ribbon left over from my daughter's striped dress.

The construction of the pattern is very easy and goes together quickly. The yokes are stitched to the front and back, and then joined at the shoulders and side seams. The yoke linings are stitched together at the shoulders and then stitched around the neck opening to the jumper. Once they are turned to the inside, the raw edges of the armhole are finished with bias binding as shown below. Add a hem and you're done! Of course, adding trim and pockets takes extra time, but it is time well spent to add a little personality to the garment.

This turned out cuter than both either my daughter or I expected. It just goes to show you that a little bit of trim can go a long way.

Parting Shot: New Fan. We're still working on painting and updating our living room/stair area. This fan is part of that project. It replaced a very large one that squeaked and had large glass globes and rattan on the fan blades. Not quite the look we were going for, so it got replaced. As a bonus, this fan has a remote control.